Fences
by sugar free vanilla
Summary: Richard Castle wasn't at a book party that night - and first impressions are everything. Season One AU.


**So, this is me. Attempting an actual fic. Not a oneshot or collection of. **

**Today someone said something to me about first impressions and it had me wondering how things would've gone if Beckett met Castle oh-so-slightly differently. So this is a season one AU exploring that concept. Don't really like this opening but I know where I want to take it.**

**I wouldn't be surprised if this has been done, but ah well.**

**Disclaimer: ... (Does it need saying!?)**

She hesitates for only the briefest of seconds before raising her fist to rap sharply against the panel of the door, taking the time to quell the slight tremor of her fingers and push down the quivering excitement that flushes through her veins.

By the time her hand meets the wood, Kate is gone and all that remains is Detective Beckett.

At least until the entryway swings open and she can't quite suppress the shimmer of a blush that heats her neck, dyeing the creamy skin a subtle shade of pink. He is her favourite author after all and -

- oh, his eyes are _so very blue. _

"Can I help?" He asks, and he's smiling politely, a convivial thing that leaves her feeling oh-so welcome on Richard Castle's doorstep.

She doesn't stumble over her words and for that she's both glad and proud, her voice ringing sharp and clear and professional as she introduces herself. "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD-"

There's a soft thump as whatever he's holding (a hairbrush, she notes, glancing down) hits the floor, disappearing from his grasp in the same way the joviality vanishes from his face.

"Oh, God. Oh, God - is my mother okay?" Panic is written into every crevice in his face, the cleft in his chin and the dips at his brow. Azure fades into terrified prussian as his jaw sets, mouth a firm line.

His jump to that particular conclusion leaves her winded, reminds her of that day ten years ago when she arrived home to find a cop on the doorstep and asked nearly the exact same thing.

At least this time she doesn't have to confirm his worst fears.

Before she can open her mouth, a teenaged girl appears and tucks herself into his side, red hair half up in a french-braid. "Dad - what's going on? Is Grams okay?"

"That's not why I'm here, Mr Castle." She quickly reassures. "But I've got some questions for you about a murder that took place earlier today, so I'm going to need you to come downtown with me."

Confusion clouds his gaze and that's a relief, no sign of nervous guilt about him. She doesn't think she could take it if the man who gave her justice through his words turned out to be a cold blooded killer.

"Yeah - of course. Uh - I can take Alexis, right? Mother's out on the town and-"

"Dad, I'm fifteen. I'll be fine. I've got some studying to do and then I'll get an early night. Go."

He looks torn but nods, giving his daughter a squeeze and a kiss to the temple. "Okay, Pumpkin - sorry, Detective… Can I have two minutes?"

She nods a yes, but declines his offer to come in. And - oh.

Beckett can honestly say that she's never waited to take a person of interest down to the station so that said person could plait their daughter's hair.

He is completely unashamed of playing hairdresser with his little girl and it sends a delicious thrill up Beckett's spine because they say you should never meet your heroes, but he has far exceeded the playboy image of him splashed across page six every other day.

He grabs a coat and shoes, shooting a quick _love you _to the redhead over his shoulder as he follow her out of his loft, only a couple of paces behind; his long, slow strides easily keeping up with the more rapid movements of her legs. Neither of them talk, the muffled thud of her heels against the plush carpet filling the heavy silence.

"So. What's going on?" He inquires finally, buckled into the backseat of her police cruiser.

"I'll explain when we get to the station, Mr Castle." Beckett's tone is brusque, leaving no room for argument as she shoves away her encounter with him at the loft, the awe that rises like bubbles in her stomach, bursting with a soft fizz that scatters through her body. She has to interrogate this man in a minute and nothing - _nothing - _gets in the way of how well she does her job.

* * *

><p>There's something different about him when she strides into Interrogation One after letting him stew for a couple of minutes, his police records in hand. It's not in his posture - no, that's still open, inviting - but there's something in his eyes that has shuttered over and an arrogant smirk twisting his lips that's so different from the pleasant expression he'd opened his door with not even an hour earlier.<p>

"Mr. Castle… You've got quite a rap sheet for a best-selling author… Disorderly conduct, resisting arrest."

She doesn't get the contrite explanation she's expecting, an insistence that all of that's in the past now. "Boys will be boys," is all she gets, an offhand dismissal of the charges, like being arrested is a _joke._

Disappointment grits between her teeth, a bitter taste against her tongue but she pushes on, perseveres.

"Says here you stole a police horse."

"Borrowed."

She doesn't even dignify that response with an eye-roll. "And you were nude, at the time." The smarm in his voice and the gleam in his eye as he shrugs ("_it was spring!") _are almost daring her to picture it.

She won't let him throw her off her game. Shutting the file with a snap, she tosses it to the table and takes a seat. There's bite to her voice as the folder hits the surface with a _smack. _"And every time the charges were _dropped._"

His proximity as he leans across the table, eyes two blue laser beams (utterly deadly in their focus) as he tries to make direct eye contact may have done a better job at flustering her were his words not shooting stabs of disenchantment into her image of him; the one built from years of reading his books, the words on the page as well as the ones he wrote below her name after she queued for hours just for his signature. The picture bolstered by seeing him so at ease and then so passionately worried for his family at his apartment.

The one that's rapidly splintering, the broken shards ripping at the ideal she built and churning her stomach until the disillusionment makes her nauseous.

"What can I say? The mayors a fan. But if it makes you feel any better… I'd be _happy _to let you spank me."

"Mr. Castle." She doesn't falter in her demeanour - mild aggression tinged with amusement that makes her seem in control but at ease. Effortless power play, despite her urge to rage at him for not being what she'd imagined. She's unsure how to reconcile this - this _jerk _with the father who refused to go out halfway through styling his kid's hair. "This whole bad boy charm thing that you've got going may work for bimbettes and celebutantes - but me? I work for a living and that makes you one of two things in my world: Either the guy who makes my life easier… or the guy who makes my life harder. And trust me, you do _not _want to be the guy who makes my life harder."

No wiseass comeback for that, just a ''_kay' _and maybe a flash of respect in his eyes, even as that crooked little smile plays on his lips.

He is _devastatingly _attractive and if he wasn't such a sleaze… Beckett thinks even her knees may have been weakened by that grin.

If he was just like he'd been at the loft-

_No time for that. Murder investigation, Beckett. Focus_.

Slapping the first picture down, she inquires if he knows Alison Tisdale. He doesn't. She can't help the rocketing of her irises into her skull as he dismisses the idea of having had interaction with Martin Fisk because most of his claims '_are on the large side'._

(The traitorous little part of her that's not entirely repulsed by the playboy sweep its gaze over his delightfully broad frame and doesn't doubt the statement.)

The cockiness on his face drains for a second when she pushes the crime scene photos towards him and recognition dawns but then it's back in full swing. Directed at her.

Did he _really _just call her a 'hardcore Castle groupie'? To her face?

And she really does not like having her love for Castle's books mocked, not even by the man himself. Not when they mean so much to her.

Beckett lets it go before she can rant about how even '_angry wiccans out for blood'_ get brought to justice and the importance of that and can he please not belittle the words that got her through so much?

She's a little less self-possessed now, put off by his last comment and when he speaks over her as she tries to explain the need for his fan mail her voice tapers off and her eyes lift to meet his - a lot in irritation that he interrupts her but a little in awe (because even if he is a complete _jackass, _Richard Castle is finishing her sentences and this is the _mystery novelist _speaking now, the one who keeps her in suspense and manages to put even _her _off the scent of the killer in his books before the dramatic reveal).

"Do you know you have _gorgeous _eyes?"

It's a come-on she's heard a million times before but his face is so intense as he says it, no leer or smile, just his heated gaze on hers - and she hates herself for it but for a second her mind goes blank and her tongue is tied and she loses all her Beckett cool.

People don't have that effect on her. She doesn't _allow _people to have that effect on her.

She needs to get out of this interrogation room.

"So I take it you won't have any objection to us going through your mail." She's gathering up the files even as she speaks (voice steady, thank God) when he throws her again.

He wants _pictures? _For a _poker group?_

"People are dead, Mr Castle." And now that potion of disappointment and anger broiling in her belly twists out of her because _how can he be this callous and he was so different at the loft and she could've sworn to god he was a decent human being earlier and why is he suddenly such an slimeball when an hour ago he had her sure he was everything she'd ever imagined him to be?! _"You have a daughter, Mr. Castle. A mother you were terrified was dead when I showed up at your door. These victims have _families! _People that get left behind. They aren't trophies for you to flash around to your writer buddies, you insensitive dirtbag."

His face breaks open, all scolded little boy until it transforms into remorseful man. Softer, like he had been with his daughter and his gaze sorrowful as he seeks - something, she isn't sure what actually, but his eyes beseech her like-

-like he wants her to see more than the way he behaves?

But then he closes off again, head turning to the one-way mirror behind him.

"I'm not asking for the bodies… just the pictures."

Ugh. _Asshole._

She's done here.

**tumblr: castleholic**


End file.
